


bad boy killer

by starlightkun



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bad Boy Lee Taeyong, Coming of Age, F/M, Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, but they somehow turn out ok, i prefer to think of it as two stupid teenagers making stupid choices, oh warning for red haired taeyong whew, reader and taeyong relationship is lowkey unhealthy??, u can and will get second male lead syndrome and u will b severely disappointed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:13:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26905681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightkun/pseuds/starlightkun
Summary: in which your childhood friend goes a little too far when reinventing himself for your senior year
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Reader
Kudos: 22





	1. [one]

Lee Taeyong wasn’t always a bad boy. In fact, you didn’t even consider him to be one nowadays. But that was probably because of the photos of you two together playing with bubbles in the bath when you were two, and sitting in slides together at three, and of you smashing cake in each other’s faces at your fourth birthday party. Knowing someone since childhood made it hard for you to ever take them seriously, much less when they tried to completely reinvent themselves before you started your last year of high school.

At the end of June, you were spending a lazy day at the park with Taeyong, his head resting on your lap as you sat together on a blanket was when he first shared in a hushed whisper his want to get piercings, dye his hair, and get tattoos. To “become a bad boy,” according to him. You couldn’t help but snort, trying not to dissuade your friend too much. He lightly laughed it off with you.

Only a week later, Taeyong climbed through your bedroom window—a regular occurrence—to show you the fake lip ring he got. If you could detach the boy in front of you from your old childhood friend, you could see that the lip looked really good on him. But you just couldn’t. You tried nonetheless, telling him you thought it was pretty. He pouted as he took it off his bottom lip and threw it in your trashcan.

Two weeks later, at nearly midnight, your phone rang with an incoming call from him.

“Hey, Yonggie.” You greeted him with a yawn. “What’s up?”

You didn’t miss the audible sigh he let out before speaking. “Are you home?”

“Uh, yeah. Why?”

“Look over.”

Standing up from the comfort of your bed, you opened your blinds to peer out. Taeyong’s window across the yard from yours was illuminated, the cheerful figure of your friend waving at you.

“Okay, now watch this.” With that, he ripped off the beanie had been wearing to reveal a head full of bright red hair.

“Oh my god! Your parents are going to _kill you_ when they see that tomorrow!”

“I know!”

“Where did you even get it done?”

“I did it at Yukhei’s house!”

You took a deep breath, the name familiar to you. “As in, Wong Yukhei?”

Yukhei had moved to your school last year, bringing with him a bad reputation. Apparently, he had gotten expelled from his previous school for an array of things. Depending on who you asked, it was either for pranking a teacher one too many times, punching another student, dealing drugs, underage drinking, or all of the above. None of them sounded pleasant to you, or like someone that you or Taeyong would want to hang out with. But he was now hanging out with Yukhei, which worried you.

“Yeah, Jaeh—Yoonoh invited me with him.” Your friend explained, and you couldn’t draw your eyes from the fiery visage of Taeyong across your yard. Jung Jaehyun was another childhood friend of the both of you, but he’d strayed from your friend group when you graduated middle school. You knew that he had started wanting to be called Yoonoh instead of Jaehyun now. You didn’t even know he and Taeyong were hanging out again, you hadn’t seen him in over a year.

“You hung out with Jae?”

Taeyong seemed to have noticed that he struck a chord with you, fervently backtracking, “He called me up the other day, and I mean I didn’t know we were going to Yukhei’s house, and I didn’t go over there to dye my hair it just kind of happened. But I love it! Isn’t it really cool?”

Squeezing your eyes shut in thought, you tried to compose words that wouldn’t hurt your friend’s feelings. He really did seem excited about the new hair color, and you couldn’t argue that it didn’t look good on him. “It looks great, Yonggie. Are you seeing Jae again soon?” You couldn’t even force yourself to call him Yoonoh, it felt unnatural to you.

“Me, him, Yukhei, and a bunch of their friends are hanging out tomorrow. Why?”

“Tell him I said hi.”

“Are you okay, Y/N?”

“Just tired, I was about to sleep when you called me.” You only partially lied, offering him a sleepy smile that you hoped he could make out.

“You sure? I can probably convince them to let me bring you with.” Your neighbor offered, eyes catching yours through the windows. “I know you miss Yoonoh as much as I did.”

“It’s fine, I’ve got some studying to do.”

“Okay. Sorry for keeping you up. Goodnight, mochi.”

* * *

And that was the last time you ever heard Taeyong affectionately call you by your childhood nickname. Or even really address you at all. The next day he went to hang out with Jaehyun, Yukhei, and whom you assumed to be Yukhei and Jaehyun’s other delinquent friends, while you threw yourself into your studying. He came back with two slits in his right eyebrow.

Your texts with Taeyong got less and less frequent until it got to the point where he wouldn’t even give you a second glance if he saw you out and about. You kept your blinds open, hoping he’d climb through your window again, or call you up to talk to each other through your windows. He never did.

The first weekend after you started back at school, having exchanged brief hellos in your shared classes—where you had noticed another silver lip ring, which you guessed to be real this time—you looked up from your homework out your blinds and immediately regretted it. It was something you wished you could unsee: some girl you’d never seen straddling Taeyong on his bed as they sloppily made out. Slamming your blinds shut while trying not to puke, you never reopened them again.

That day you knew that any hopes of rekindling your lost friendship with Taeyong were gone. He was always accompanied by Yukhei, or _Yoonoh_ , or their other friends you came to know as Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest. You didn’t really care about learning their names, nor did they seem to care much about you either. But deep in your gut, you knew that you still cared about Lee Taeyong, which is why you would still offer him a cheerful greeting in passing and sat beside him in your only period without his friends. If he didn’t skip, of course.

* * *

You weren’t expecting to find Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest waiting in front of your locker for you one morning. But there they were, ripped jeans, faded hoodies, and all. You slowed to a stop in front of them, raising an eyebrow. “I know you know that’s my locker.”

“Is it really?” The tallest one you’d nicknamed Dumb asked, and you tried to refrain from rolling your eyes.

“Yep.”

Dumber spoke up, the smallest of the three, “Our bad.”

But they still didn’t move. Tapping your foot impatiently, you kept eye contact with Dumbest, waiting for him to add some sleazy comment.

“Could you please move?” You requested sweetly, fluttering your eyelashes.

“Make me.” Dumbest finally said suggestively, tongue tracing his bottom lip.

Knowing that he wanted a reaction from you, you stood your ground, waiting for them to move. Dumb’s phone buzzed then, and his face lit up as he checked it. “TY’s here, let’s go.”

With that, they abandoned your locker, Dumbest giving you a wink as he passed by you, “See you soon.”

TY could have only meant Taeyong. He seemed to have become the leader of whatever weird conglomerate of “bad boys” that friend group was. Shaking your head, you twisted your combination into the lock, humming a peppy tune to try to get yourself back into a good mood.

“You okay?” A voice asked from beside you, and you turned to see your locker neighbor, Mark, out of breath as he opened his own. “I was at the other end of the hall and couldn’t get here fast enough.”

The idea of Mark Lee protecting you from those three was enough for you to crack a smile. First of all, you didn’t need protection from Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest, they were more nuisances than anything else. Secondly, Mark didn’t quite strike you as the alpha male protective type anyway.

“It’s fine, Mark. They’re just three dumb guys, nothing to call the police about.” You took out your binder for your next few classes, stowing away the ones for your very last ones.

Mark’s face lit up into a grin as well, chuckling at himself, “Thank god, I was not in the mood to get beaten to a pulp.”

“Hey, where’s Chenle?” You peered around, looking for the adorable little underclassmen that had pretty much attached himself at the hip to Mark.

“He is fortunately at home, sick.”

“Don’t you mean unfortunately?”

“Ehh.”

You scoffed, elbowing the boy in the side. “Be nice to him, he pretty much idolizes you.”

“Who calls their idol old and fat when they don’t get their way?” Mark replied indignantly just as the bell rang.

“Zhong Chenle, apparently. See you later, Mark.”

“See ya!” He gave you a wave as you parted to go to your own classes.

As a senior, you had very few serious classes to take, you really just needed to get your extra number of credits to graduate. That meant that your classes were filled with the strangest ensemble of people, underclassmen and upperclassmen, from the potheads to band geeks to “bad boys” to studyholics to drama nerds. And you were just kind of there. You normally sat with Chenle in your first class, art. His bubbly self always brought a smile to your face. But now that he wasn’t at school, you were quite lonely at the large table, accompanied only by an empty chair.

“Where’s the kid?” A voice that, much to your disdain, was starting to become familiar to your ears asked.

Dumbest was sitting on the table just a couple inches from your supplies, feet on your younger friend’s chair.

“Chenle’s sick today.” You informed him, scooting your colored pencils away from him before coolly reaching into your bag for your sketchbook.

“So does that mean this seat’s open?”

Looking around the room, you suddenly got an idea, “Nope! Because uh, Sicheng is going to sit with me today!”

The boy whose name you had just loudly announced perked up from where he had entered the art room. You were friendly enough with Dong Sicheng, he was a relatively quiet boy who lived down the street from you and was featured in several childhood photos alongside you, Taeyong, and Jaehyun. He hesitantly approached you, pulling the chair out from under Dumbest’s feet before setting his bookbag on it.

“Yuta, could you please move? I need to get my supplies out.” Sicheng’s quiet request held enough confidence to make _Yuta_ hop off the table.

“Of course.” The other boy grinned, ruffling his hair as he walked away.

“Thank you.” You said quietly to Sicheng as he retrieved his supplies before sitting down beside you.

“No problem,” He replied with a warm smile, observing your hands as they flipped through your sketchbook to find your current assignment. “My mom told me to say hi the next time I saw you, by the way.”

“Ah, tell her I said hi, too.”

You finally found the correct page, the beginnings of a sketch of four small figures sitting on a bench. The two in the middle had their arms around each other tightly, smushing their cheeks together. Only the outlines had been put down so far, nothing to define who they were exactly. But Sicheng clearly knew what it was.

“Me, you, Taeyong, Jaehyun.” He went left to right naming the outlines fondly.

“The prompt was childhood.” You shrugged noncommittally, opening your phone to bring up a copy of the picture. Looking at it brought a bittersweet ache in your chest, looking at your four bright smiles. You could almost hear the laughter of the four five-year-olds ringing in your ears or feel Taeyong’s cheek smushed against yours as he tried to hug you as tightly as possible.

“Wow, we’ve changed.” 

“Just a bit.”

The rest of the class you continued a quiet and pleasant conversation with Sicheng as both of you focused on your work. You’d gotten started on drawing in the faces when the bell rang, prompting you to pack up your things. 

“Y/N…” Sicheng spoke up, shouldering his bookbag. 

“Yes?” You replied, zipping up your own.

“I’ve got an empty seat next to me in history if you want it.”

History was your last period and the only one that you shared with Taeyong and without at least one his friends. It was during that period that you could almost pretend that you two were how you were a year ago. Almost. There was still the bright red hair, lip piercing, eyebrow slits, and bad attitude. But that almost was what kept you there, the occasional time you could make him laugh and see the way his eyes turn to crescents and his whole face lights up, or when he would do his work for once and his tongue would poke ever so slightly out of his mouth, a habit he’d had ever since you were little. That’s probably why you felt reluctant to accept Sicheng’s offer for a seat change.

“Ah thanks, but I think I’m okay where I am. How about we go out for boba after school instead?” You suggested, leading the way out of the art room and down the hall. “We can get some studying done for our history test tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a date.”

“Not a date.”

Sicheng had a teasing smile on his face as you elbowed his side. “I’m only kidding, Y/N. No way I’d date someone who rubbed my face in mud.”

“That was twelve years ago, let it go you big baby.” You rolled your eyes but were glad that he wasn’t actually misinterpreting your offer to hang out.

“I’ll see you in history, then.”

“See you.”

* * *

When you sat down in history that day, you were surprised to find Taeyong already there. Not only was he not skipping, but he was early to your class. “Hi Taeyong!” You greeted him cheerily, plopping yourself into the seat beside him.

“Hey, Y/N.” He ran a hand through his bright scarlet locks, slit eyebrow raised as an indecipherable look was on his face. “Since when have you and _Dong Sicheng_ been going out?”

“Since never.” Was your immediate retort as you opened your bookbag.

“I’ve got a friend that says otherwise.”

“Tell Dumbest to keep his ears out of my conversations.”

“Dumbest?”

“I don’t know your friends’ names, so I call them Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest. Although I did recently learn that Dumbest’s name is Yuta.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Taeyong let out a chuckle, eyes curving into those beautiful crescents before they popped back open, the same expression on as before. “So you going to boba with Sicheng isn’t a date?”

Flipping open your spiral notebook to where you had last been taking lecture notes, you reaffirmed, “I am not dating Sicheng. We’re studying for our test in here tomorrow. You’re welcome to join us, we’re going right after school.”

There was something smug about his face now as he leaned back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest. “Thanks for the invite, but I’ve already got plans. In fact,” He clicked his phone on to check the time, and you caught such a fleeting glimpse of his wallpaper that you weren’t sure if you had imagined it or not. “Yoon’s waiting for me out front right now, gotta go!”

Taeyong gave you a soft pat on the head before shooting up out of his seat and out the classroom door just as the bell rang for class to begin. Your teacher shook her head as she closed the door behind him, but your eyes were still trained on the doorway he had disappeared through. The picture on his homescreen was still floating in your vision. Him, Yukhei, Yoonoh, Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest. You didn’t know why some part of you thought that he would’ve kept it as the picture you two took at his 18th birthday party, your cheeks smushed together to recreate the image you were sketching in art now. Maybe because _you_ had kept it as that.

* * *

“What’s on your mind?” Sicheng nudged you gently in the side, hands wrapped around his drink as the two of you sat outside the boba shop.

Eyes flitting over the bleak gray skyscrapers jutting into the deep blue autumn sky, you let out a deep sigh. You didn’t even answer your friend, simply taking out your phone and scooting a little closer to him. “Here, we don’t have a recent picture of us together, do we?”

“Well, no,” Sicheng admitted, face cracking into a smile after you had opened the front camera and brought the phone up in front of your faces.

Satisfied with the picture, you selected the ‘more’ option. Your thumb hovered over the 'make lockscreen and homescreen’ button before landing on 'make lockscreen.’ You couldn’t bring yourself to change your homescreen from that picture of you and Taeyong. Having done something about the issue that had been nagging at you since history, you were finally able to focus on your studying.

As you worked with Sicheng, you realized how much you had missed your old childhood friend. Sure, you’d seen him at neighborhood block parties and dinners between the families over the years, but you hadn’t actually hung out with him on your own in a long time. After Jaehyun stopped hanging out with you all, it didn’t take much for Sicheng to be unintentionally phased out of the friend group, leaving you and Taeyong being the only two who ever hung out. And you hung out _all the time_. Thinking about how you’d become so socially dependent on Taeyong, you felt a small ache in your heart, but also a growing sense of freedom. You’d done everything with Taeyong for years, you had almost no other friends. But now you could do whatever you wanted, with whoever you wanted. Maybe him leaving you was going to be a good thing after all.


	2. [two]

“Yah! Zhong Chenle! I’m going to kill you, you little punk!” You screeched, pouncing on the boy who had just shot you with a water gun.

You were at Mark’s house, enjoying a pool party with him and his friends who had slowly become your friends as well. You’d even managed to introduce Sicheng into the friend group, and he had brought his own friend Kun along too. It felt nice, having more than one friend again. Until one of them decided to be a little shit and spray your perfectly dry self with a high-powered water gun.

Chenle was in the shallow end, but you had caught him off-guard enough to send him tumbling under the water. He was cackling as he stood back up, grabbing you around the torso to start dragging you towards the deeper end. You hit his arms, squirming around until you freed yourself, dunking him underwater again.

“Don’t drown each other.” Mark pleaded monotonously from where he and Donghyuck were sitting on floats, watching the spectacle.

“Get him, Y/N! Get him!” Donghyuck cheered you on from his swan float, as if he was watching a gladiator match, genuinely enjoying watching you and Chenle play-wrestle.

You and Chenle finally came to a draw, and you pulled yourself back out from the pool. Sicheng offered your towel out to you as you approached the table he was sitting at, where the food and drinks were all laid out. You accepted it, drying your face and hands before sitting on your friend’s leg with no hesitation.

“I was dry!” He whined but made no move to push you off.

“And now you’re not.” Reaching forward, you grabbed a plate to then dispense a handful of chips onto.

Kun and Renjun were in some kind of deep conversation as they viewed something on Kun’s phone across the table from you. Their brows were furrowed as they spoke in hushed whispers, occasionally glancing up at you.

“What are you boys doing?” You questioned, popping a chip in your mouth.

“Ah, nothing!” Sicheng answered for them, starting forwards, nearly knocking you off of him.

Regaining your balance, you turned to narrow your eyes at your friend. “What? What are they looking at, Sicheng?”

“The announcement for the new Smash game!” Renjun went to cover, but Kun’s guilty face gave away your friends’ lies.

You stood up, crossing your arms as you looked between the three of them. “What’s going on?”

Kun went to open his mouth, but the boy beside him slapped a hand over it, and Sicheng took the lead again, “Y/N, I promise, it’s nothing.”

“Then why can’t I know what it is?”

“Please, just leave it alone.”

“Fine.” You snapped, pivoting on your heel to storm back over to the poolside. You were beyond frustrated with them at this point, but past the point of wanting to fight over this any longer.

The youngest of your new friends, Jisung, had taken over Mark’s giant blue float at some point, and scooted over to make room for you to join him on it. Plopping down beside your younger friend, you let out a screech into your hands.

“If Sicheng says it’s nothing, then I’m sure it is.” He tried to reassure you, but you scoffed at the notion.

“No, I’m sure it’s something. He likes to try to ‘protect’ me from any kind of bullshit.”

“And you can handle it.”

“Exactly!”

Jisung reached over to fish one of the squirt guns from the pool. He handed it to you, pointing at the perfectly dry Donghyuck still perched atop his own float. Exchanging a mischievous grin with him, you turned the water gun on Donghyuck, and sprayed him full-blast. He nearly toppled off the swan, immediately yelling various curses at you. But there was still more water in the gun, and you aimed for his open mouth this time. You were successful, letting up to allow him to hack up the chlorinated water you’d just force-fed him before squirting his chest again. He started paddling himself towards the float you were on, clambering for blood.

“Let’s go!” You squealed, and Jisung started trying to maneuver you two away from the angry boy, but Donghyuck was already too close.

He leapt onto your float, sending all three of you into the water, disturbing Jeno and Jaemin, who had been peacefully dipping their feet into the deep end. As you desperately swam away from the still-cursing Donghyuck, you were cackling with Jisung, and felt a sense of joyful comradery with all of these boys. You had your own ever-growing group of friends, finally.

* * *

At the end of the night, some boys were sleeping over, and despite Mrs. Lee liking you very much, she nonetheless didn’t approve of you sleeping over as well. You took no offense to it, merely drying yourself off and gathering your stuff up again. Kun and Sicheng weren’t staying over either, and the three of you set off towards your homes together. Walking with the boys, you were still wringing your hair out to the best of your ability, occasionally getting the now-cold drops of water on Sicheng.

“That’s cold!” He hissed, rubbing it off his arm with a shiver.

You rolled your eyes, giving him a frank glare that you hoped he could see with the light from the lampposts, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about earlier.”

Sicheng rubbed the back of his neck with a grimace, and Kun coughed awkwardly from his other side.

“I don’t know why you think you need to protect me from whatever bullshit it is now.” You continued, tying back your wet hair. “I can deal with it. Last time it was just that you were partnered up with Dumbest for an in-class project. Not a big deal.”

Your friend was still silent, and you shook your head, reaching behind him to tap Kun’s shoulder, “Kun-Kun.”

The other boy seemed to be almost in pain with how conflicted he was. One of the worst and best parts about being friends with Kun was that he could never keep a secret very well. It was bad if you tried to tell him anything private, but you hoped that it would come in use now. Sicheng was looking at him now too, trying to silently persuade him to not say anything.

“Kun-Kun, please.” You pouted, and you could hear him curse under his breath.

“Alright, it—”

“Qian Kun!” Sicheng groaned, hitting his friend’s arm.

“I’m sorry!” He screeched in reply to him, before continuing on with giving you the wanted information, “It was Taeyong’s Snapchat story that we were looking at.”

“And what was on it?”

“Kun…” Sicheng gave him one last warning.

You had reached the point where you had to split up with Kun, his house being in a separate suburb from yours and Sicheng’s. Kun immediately stammered out a goodbye before bolting down the street away from you. Sighing, you glared at Sicheng again before speed-walking down the sidewalk, leaving him behind. He jogged to catch up with you, keeping your own fast pace. 

“Y/N…”

“I have him added on Snapchat, you know? I can look at it myself.” You spat out, pulling your phone out from your bag.

“I thought we agreed that you would unfollow him from every social media.” He said in a disappointed tone that only made your blood boil even more.

“No, you had _suggested_ that. I didn’t _agree_ to anything.”

“I—” He cut himself off, shaking his head as he reached out for your hand. “Y/N.”

“ _What_ , Sicheng?”

“You’re a really great person.”

“Thanks.” You snorted, accompanied by an eye roll as you continued opening your phone.

Taking your hand from his, you clicked on Snapchat. Sicheng was quiet as you searched Taeyong’s name, defiantly clicking on the circular icon of his story. The first snap—labelled as being ten hours ago—wasn’t much, just a very fuckboy-esque selfie of him biting his lip right beside his lip ring, winking at the camera as the sun behind him lit up his red hair. The next snap—posted four hours ago—was a video of Jaehyun and Yukhei doing shots, nothing new to you. You tapped to view the next snap—from three hours ago—and felt your stomach drop to the ground and your heart twist in your ribcage. It was just a picture, thankfully, but the content of the picture made you sick. Taeyong’s lips were locked with those of some random girl who was clearly drunk. And judging by the sloppy camera work and awkward smushing of faces, so was your neighbor. 

Swiping out of the story, you tried to hide your discomfort, tucking your phone back away. Sicheng went to rub your arm comfortingly, but you shook him off.

“He’s making out with someone, big whoop.” You scoffed weakly, shaking your head. “Why did you think I’d care?”

“Because I know you.”

The pity in his voice irked you even more, and you felt ready to either scream, puke, run, or punch him in the face. “Not well enough, because I don’t fucking care. I literally don’t give a shit about what girl Taeyong is currently fucking. He’s allowed to go out and be a fuckboy, and I don’t care if he does. I don’t give a _flying fuck_ about Lee Taeyong, okay?”

“Okay.” Sicheng gave in with a look of disbelief, but clearly didn’t want to argue with you any more.

Just as you had bellowed out that declaration, you turned the corner onto your street. Taeyong’s house was right on that corner, and to your surprise, he and his friends were all hanging out on his driveway. And had clearly heard you, at least the last part, because he was standing on the sidewalk ahead of you, arms crossed and head cocked. A smirk was pulling at his lips, a single eyebrow raised as he looked you up and down.

“That hurts my feelings, Y/N.” Taeyong said as you and Sicheng slowed to a stop in front of him.

“Ooh, I’m sorry.” You replied mockingly, suddenly feeling exposed as you stood in just your swimsuit and shorts in front of Taeyong and his friends, who weren’t keeping their satisfaction at your wardrobe quiet.

“Excuse us, Taeyong.” Sicheng coughs awkwardly, trying to tug you past him, but neither you nor the red-haired boy moved a single muscle.

While he didn’t seem to be completely drunk, you could still smell faint whiffs of alcohol off him and from the other mass of boys, which made sense as to why they were sitting outside on the driveway. Taeyong’s parents had started a policy of just letting him be, but not letting him bring any “bad influences” in the house. You’d heard his mom lamenting his “negative changes” as she cried into your own mother’s arms on your couch, while you awkwardly made yourself dinner in the kitchen, trying to act as if you weren’t listening in.

“So, where were you?” Taeyong asked, referencing your wet hair and swimsuit.

“A pool.”

“Whose pool?”

“I don’t have to tell you that.”

“Ooh, I’m just curious.” He mocked offense again, and as you stood facing off with him, you wondered how you’d gotten here. Just a few months ago, you would’ve been swimming together, laughing your asses off in the community pool, bothering your neighbors. And for some reason you didn’t feel any remorse for that lost experience. You had a great time, with all of your friends tonight.

“Mark’s house.” You answered with a nonchalant shrug, seeming to frustrate the boy beside you even further. “He had a bunch of us over to hang out.”

“And who is us?”

“Why do you care?”

“Just curious.”

“Alright, well my mom wanted me home by eleven, and you’ve held me up past curfew.” You showed your phone display of 11:03.

Taeyong stepped out of your way with a polite bow, “My bad.”

“Yeah, it is.” Sicheng grumbled, pushing you down the sidewalk towards your house again.

Taeyong’s friends yelled out all their own goodbyes, but not a single one came from the boy you had just been talking to. At your doorstep, Sicheng apologized to your mom for you being out past your curfew, and she shooed him away affectionately. After giving your friend a wave as he started down the street to his own house, you cast one last glance over to Taeyong’s driveway. He was still watching you from the pop-up chair he was sitting on.

* * *

Sitting at your chair in art, you gave Chenle a friendly hello, side-eyeing Sicheng who was on your other side. Originally there wasn’t a seat there, but since you started hanging out again, Sicheng had moved his chair next to yours, almost seamlessly blending into your dynamic with Chenle. But you were still upset that he was trying to protect you just from the world. You were a big girl, you could handle yourself.

“Morning, Y/N!” Chenle chirped, spreading out his colored pencils in varying shades of orange. The current assignment in art was to use only one color in your drawing, no restrictions on the subject matter—other than being school-appropriate.

“Morning, LeLe, Sicheng.” You’d chosen red for yourself, but despite swatching all of your pastels and testing out how they blended and techniques, you still didn’t know what to draw. Beside you, Sicheng mumbled a good morning as well, clearly not fully awake as he brought out his blues, still blinking sleep out of his eyes.

Dumbest entered then, accompanied by Dumb, who you also knew to be in this class. You only briefly glanced at them, letting your eyes slide back down to your blank paper. 

You needed inspiration.

Seeing Taeyong’s friends had prompted you to mindlessly open your phone, angling it so that only you could see what you were staring at, your homescreen. Your lockscreen had cycled through photos of you and your new friends as you got more—it was currently a picture taken the other night at Mark’s pool party of you, Jisung, and Renjun—but your homescreen was still stuck on that photo of you and Taeyong at his birthday party. You hadn’t seen a smile like that from him in months. His hair was brown in that photo, but you couldn’t get the fiery visage of his current red hair out of your vision. And you had chosen red for your color. 

You felt like such a cliché as you put down your phone and picked up a pencil. Starting your sketch, you veered away from your instincts to draw your (ex?)-friend or something that reminded you of him, and instead designed a desert sunset, already imagining how your sunlight would paint the whole landscape in dripping reds and brilliant pinks.

Humming along to your music that you had playing through your headphones, you were focused and pleasantly distracted for the whole period, not even realizing that it was time to go until Sicheng tapped your arm. Seeing everyone else packing up and leaving, you did the same, saying goodbye to Chenle, whose next class was on the other side of the school, meaning that he had to book it every day. Sicheng was able to wait for you, as you normally walked to his locker together after class. Which you also did today, wanting to just forget about this past weekend. That was how Sicheng was, and you knew that he did it because he cared.

Leaning against the locker beside his, you asked your friend how his drawing was coming along, listening as he complained about how it was starting to make him hate the color blue. You chuckled, mind still with your homescreen.

“Hey, Y/N, that’s my locker.” A voice said politely, and you snapped your head over to look at the owner of it.

Jung Jaehyun—or, _Yoonoh_ —hadn’t talked to you in years, but his voice and his looks were still undeniably him. You blinked once, twice, three times, before managing to peel yourself off the locker, “Sorry.”

Waiting behind Sicheng, you couldn’t help but sneak peeks at your other childhood friend. He opened his locker with a deft hand, swapping out what seemed to be his only two folders. Despite the temperature outside, he had on a heavy patch-covered jean jacket, styled to mimic those of a biker gang. The content of the patches themselves were harmless, but they still gave off the desired “bad boy” vibe he was surely going for.

Yoonoh turned around, flashing you a dimpled smile that you hadn’t seen in years. “See you guys later!”

And with that, he joyfully disappeared down the halls.

* * *

Several weeks later, you were running late for your last period. You were caught up talking to Mark at your lockers and completely forgot that you normally don’t go to your locker before history because it was on the _other side of the fucking school_. And now you were speed-walking through the halls, teachers suspiciously looking at you through their doors as they were at the front of their rooms, already teaching. Mrs. Oh was not going to be happy with you.

You were jumbling your sketchbook, history textbook, and three-subject history notebook when you looked up for a moment, surprised at who you saw at the end of the hallway. Taeyong glanced up from his phone, lips quirking up into a smile as he tucked his phone away, clearly waiting for you to approach him. Well, you had nothing to lose.

“Hey, Taeyong.” You greeted him sweetly.

“What are you doing not in class?” He questioned, watching as your books kept slipping in your grip.

“I spent too long at my locker, I’m not skipping or anything.”

“Well, of course. You’re a good student.”

Right as your sketchbook fell from the top of the stack in your hands, Taeyong reached out and grabbed it. You went to thank him for catching it, but stopped as you watched him open it, flipping through the pages. Shifting your weight between your legs, you sighed awkwardly as he stopped to look at all of them intently.

“Aw, you’re drawing me? That’s sweet.” He finally commented, looking at you with a prideful smirk.

“I actually drew me, and you, and Jaehyun, and Sicheng. The assignment was childhood, so I drew a childhood photo.” You guessed which one he was looking at, reaching out for your sketchbook, not wanting him to see any further. But Taeyong took a step back, keeping your book out of your reach.

“I meant, this one.” He flipped it around to reveal your sketch for your new assignment, loss. It was a ¾ view of Taeyong from the side that didn’t have the slit eyebrow, his head thrown back in laughter and eyes turned up into the cutest crescents as his mouth was stretched into a wide smile. Something that you hadn’t seen in a long time. You hadn’t started coloring it yet, but when you did, you planned on using a medium golden brown for his hair, his natural hair color.

You stopped your attempts to get your sketchbook back, just thankful that his friends weren’t around. Dumbest would probably never let you live it down. Crossing your arms, you just stood still, waiting for Taeyong to be done with whatever point he was trying to make.

“It’s really good, Y/N.” He complimented you, only sincerity in his voice.

“Thanks.”

He shut the sketchbook before handing it back to you and stuffing his hands into his jean pockets. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay.” You were left feeling emotionally confused as he walked away, flashing you one more smile over his shoulder before he walked out the front doors of the school. It was the first time you’d heard him be so genuine and just… not greasy around you in a long time.

* * *

After that encounter, you figured that maybe your friendship was Taeyong was on the upswing, that you could rekindle it again. That’s why when he showed up at your locker before school the next morning—accompanied by Yukhei—you didn’t think twice about letting your old nickname for him slip past your lips. “Morning, Yonggie!”

There was immediately a snicker from the taller boy, and you noticed your neighbor’s eyes darken. “Don’t fucking call me that!” He snapped forcefully, making you flinch. “I’m not your dumb little five-year-old friend anymore, okay?”

“Okay.” You replied monotonously, turning back to your locker to robotically switch out your folders. “I won’t call you Yonggie anymore, but don’t try to pull this ‘bad boy’ shit on me, Taeyong. I know you’re not like this.”

As you closed your locker you saw that he still hadn’t moved. You leaned back against your locker, prompting him to speak again. “You don’t know me, but you think you do, huh? Probably because you’re like fucking obsessed with me or something, drawing me and shit—”

Yukhei’s dark eyes watching as Taeyong pretty much humiliated you in the middle of the halls was the breaking point to trigger hot tears to prick at your eyes. Despite becoming a “bad boy,” Taeyong was never such a callous jerk to you, and it hurt more than it should have. It was then that you looked up from your shoes, watery eyes locking with his and halting his next sentence. 

“You’re not a ‘bad boy,’ Lee Taeyong. You’re just an asshole.” You spat out, pivoting on your heel to storm out of the commons, brushing by a very confused Chenle and Mark.

You didn’t want to go to your first class and have to see Dumb and Dumbest, who would probably be told of that incident by a gleeful Yukhei or Taeyong. Instead, you felt yourself turning away from your first period, your feet carrying you to the back of the school. As you turned the corner, your eyes landed on exactly who you had expected to be there.

“Hey, Jisung.” You offered him half of a smile, plopping yourself down behind him in the shade created by the building.

His eyebrows shot up, watching you with interest as you settled against the brick of the building, “How did you know I was out here?”

“Chenle had mentioned that you hung out here during first sometimes.”

“Ah,” Your friend nodded, unzipping his backpack to tug out a book that he then held out to you. “Here, the poems you leant me.”

“Thanks.” You tucked the book away into your own bookbag, thankful that he had remembered to give it back to you after he had borrowed it for his poetry unit in his Literature class.

“So what are you doing out here?”

“Didn’t want to go to first.”

“Fair enough.” Jisung then brought out two granola bars, offering one out to you. “Hungry?”

You accepted it wordlessly, and both of you were silent as you ripped open your packages and quietly ate the food. Just being in the company of someone who you knew wasn’t judging you at all was satisfying enough to you. You knew that he was curious, but Jisung was never one to push you about anything, he was very much a go-with-the-flow kind of person when it came to you, which you appreciated very much.

“Jisungie.”

“Hm?”

“Why do you sit out here all by yourself?”

“I like the quiet.”

A frown found its way to your face, “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be, I don’t mind sitting out here with you. You’re not loud and annoying like the others.” He reassured you, also dissing your other friends.

“What do you even have first period?”

“I’m supposed to be in math, but my schedule got messed up and I was put in a boom-boom math class instead of AP Calculus, so I figured there’s no reason to go.”

“Fair enough.”

“So what do you have now?”

“Art, with Chenle and Sicheng.”

“Why aren’t you there?”

“I can sketch out here.” You shrugged noncommittally, taking your sketchbook and pencil case from your bag.

“Is Sicheng still… you know?”

With a mere roll of your eyes, Jisung already knew the answer to that question, yes. He gave you a look that was between a sympathetic smile and second-handedly embarrassed grimace, “Could be worse, he could be like… madly in love with you or something.”

“That’s just gross, Jisung.” You scoffed, but nonetheless he had managed to make you smile a little bit.

Your younger friend was grinning too, hand reaching towards your sketchbook, waiting for permission. Figuring that you could trust him to be the least teasing about the contents of it, you placed it in his pleading hand. His eyes hungrily scanned the pages, gracing each one carefully before flipping to the next. A small, sharp intake of air passed by his lips, the situation being quiet enough that you could hear it, and you knew what page he’d gotten to. Once Jisung had finished, he handed the book back to you.

Finally, he spoke, “You must really miss him.”

“Yeah, I do.” You answered honestly, pulling your knees up to your chest.

“He must have been pretty great to have you like this.” Jisung mused, patting your knee comfortingly. “Tell me about him.”

And for the first time in a long time you let yourself think about Lee Taeyong, and how he had been there through your entire life and was such an important part of you. You let yourself reminisce in your happy memories with him, recounting infinite playdates and sleepovers and move nights and birthdays and school projects and school dances and concerts and picnics and most anything else you could think of. Jisung was a good listener, not once interrupting you or adding in his own opinion. If you ever tried to talk about Taeyong—especially in such a positive way—around Sicheng, you knew that he would have immediately shut you down. Even if you weren’t sure that you’d ever be able to spend quality time with Taeyong again, it was still nice to imagine and daydream every once in a while. Your chest would constrict and swell painfully with each fond memory you replayed in your mind, a bittersweet tinge that flowered out through your whole body. You could feel how much you missed him even in your fingertips.

When your rambling had come to a close, or at least a stopping point of some kind, Jisung let out a long, low whistle, “Shit.”

You laughed breathlessly, “I know.”

“Is he why you’re out here?”

“Yeah, actually. He said some stuff… and just humiliated me in front of one of his asshole buddies.” You shrugged, proud that your voice only wavered a little bit.

“I would normally tell you to forget about him, but that’s your whole life in one person. So like—” Jisung shrugged too, and you were thankful for his simple honesty. “Just don’t let him bother you that much now, I guess. I don’t have much advice to offer other than that you should be happy, however you want to achieve that.”

A smile tugged at your mouth, and you let go of your legs to gratefully squeeze his forearm, “Thanks, Jisungie.”

“Okay, so while you’re here, do you think you could help me with this poetry analysis?”

* * *

When you got to lunch, Sicheng was silently fuming, and you could tell that this period wouldn’t be a peaceful one for you. You took your seat beside, not even attempting a bright greeting, mumbling, “Hey, Sicheng.”

“What the fuck happened this morning?” Despite his words being harsh, his voice was still soft and caring. You couldn’t tell who exactly he was angrier at, you or Taeyong.

“How much do you know?”

“That you weren’t in first period, and that Yuta called you obsessed with Taeyong and stalking him, and that Chenle said he saw you running away from Taeyong and Yukhei crying this morning.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“Y/N.”

“I don’t need you to try to fix me or my problems again, Sicheng!” You snapped, throwing down your bag of chips, surely breaking most of them. “Do you know how to leave well enough alone?”

He was quiet, chewing on his lip apprehensively at the chastising you had just given him, looking very much like a kicked puppy. With a sigh, you ran a reassuring hand through his hair once, debating about whether to actually tell him or not.

“It’s just—” As you went to tell him, a couple more boys sat at your table, the smaller of the two flashing you a familiar smirk. Dumbest and Dumb were not who you wanted to see in that moment, your eyes habitually rolling at their presence.

“Not pleased to see us, Y/N?” Dumbest quirked an eyebrow up mischievously.

“Why would I pleased about having to see your face more than is absolutely necessary?” You snorted, popping a chip in your mouth before offering one out to Dumb, who was the least worse in your opinion. He was never overtly rude to you like the other two, he just seemed to be along for the ride.

Dumbest went to reach out for one too, but you jerked the bag away from him, encouraging a small whine to leave his throat, “You’re mean.”

Giving him a ‘do you think I really care what you think of me’ look, you held the bag back out to Dumb. He took one, chewing it thoughtfully before speaking up, “TY wants to talk to you.”

Your eyebrows shot up as Sicheng startled in his seat, mouth opening to reply for you, but you beat him to it, spitting out, “If _TY_ wants me to even fucking consider even giving him the goddamn time, he has to come ask me himself, not send his lackeys like he’s some crime boss whose time is too precious to waste on me.”

They didn’t seem to have any good reply to that, sharing a stunned look before getting up and leaving your table. You rounded on Sicheng, still a little bitter, “See? I can handle myself.”

Taeyong never ended up coming to your lunch table, and so you left with Donghyuck and Jeno, your destination being your next class that you all shared, Finance.


	3. [three]

When you arrived in History, you saw Taeyong before he saw you, the scarlet mess on his head acting as a loud siren alerting you that he was there. You stopped just outside the door, shoving your sketchbook into your backpack as a precaution. As you walked in, your eyes briefly looked to the back, where Sicheng’s desk was still empty as he hadn’t arrived yet. You could sit with him. But your curiosity got the best of you, and your feet guided you to your assigned seat, gingerly sitting in your chair. You had already determined that you wouldn’t say the first word. If Taeyong really wanted to talk to you, he would.

Setting your notebook on your desk, you reached over to grab a pencil as well, anticipating the lecture for the day. He glanced over at you, trying to gauge how angry you were. You kept a stoic look, briefly glancing at him before refocusing on the board.

“Hey,” He said, so soft that you would have missed it if it weren’t for your entire being hyper-focusing on him.

You had meant to just flit your eyes over and back again, but they got caught on his, and you couldn’t break the eye contact. Despite the slits in the brow over one of them, his eyes were just as warm, familiar, and safe as you remembered them being.

“Hey.” You croaked out, gripping your pencil tightly in your hand.

“I know that you want to pay attention to the lecture,” Taeyong continued, and you weren’t sure where he was going with it until his next couple of sentences. “So uhm, do you think we could hang out after school? I really need to talk to you and apologize and… you know.”

You took several breaths, pretending as if you were ruminating on his offer, but your mind had already been made up as soon as the words left his mouth. 

“Can you take me home afterwards?”

“Of course.”

You nodded, “Okay, yeah, I’ll go with you. We can talk.”

“Thank you so much!” He grinned, placing his palms flat on the desk, as if he was going to push himself up and leave.

You grabbed his arm, halting his escape attempt, “If you actually stay for this class.”

He raised the slit eyebrow, waiting to see how serious about it you were. After you still hadn’t let him go, he conceded, plopping back into the chair. Taeyong slouched, pulling out his phone, but you reached over and turned it off. 

“And take notes.”

“I don’t have paper.”

Wordlessly, you grabbed your paper folder from your bag, taking out two sheets and setting them on his desk.

“Or a pencil.”

You handed him the one you already had in your hand before fetching another.

Taeyong grinned as he sat forward in his seat, “Alright, so what are we on? Mongols?”

“World War I.” You snorted, patting his forearm. “You have some catching up to do, Taeyong.”

Sicheng walked in, eyes locking on yours briefly. You flashed him a defiant look, hand still resting on Taeyong’s arm. Your friend shook his head, taking the route furthest from your desk to get back to his own.

The momentary exchange didn’t go unnoticed by your neighbor. He cocked his head, watching you with interest, “Lovers’ quarrel?”

“If one more person thinks Sicheng and I are dating I’m going to break their nose.”

“Fair enough.”

“We’re fine. Friends have fights sometimes, its fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“You have bigger things to worry about than my friendship with Sicheng.” You withdrew your hand back to your own desk, giving Taeyong a subtle reminder of the fact that you were still hurt over what he had done this morning.

He nodded in assent, a sheepish smile coming to his features, “You’re right.”

When Mrs. Oh walked in and saw Taeyong at his desk, a pencil in hand and paper at the ready, you swear she almost burst into tears. Or had a heart attack, you couldn’t quite tell which. Despite not having been to class in months, he seemed to still have a good grasp of what was going on in history, even when the teacher would call back to lessons from weeks ago. 

You were attentive as Mrs. Oh lectured, clicking through her PowerPoint as she went. Your hand was cramping by the end of class, but you were left with a huge grin plastered across your face. Not only did Mrs. Oh always make lectures fun, but just having Taeyong near you again was having a positive effect on you. It was kind of embarrassing how nice it felt just to be with him again, but you couldn’t help it. He was your entire life up until now, what else were you supposed to feel about him?

The bell rang, and Mrs. Oh gave a goodbye to everybody as most kids immediately stormed out of the classroom. You quickly put your things away, accepting your pencil back from Taeyong, silently proud of how many notes he had actually taken. He used both sheets you gave him, almost as much as you had used in your notebook. To your surprise and Taeyong’s, Sicheng stopped in front of your desk pair, seemingly waiting for you so that you could walk home together as you normally did.

“Ah, Sicheng, I’m not going home yet, so you can go ahead without me.” You tried to make it as nonchalant and vague as you could, not wanting him to think that you were blowing him off for Taeyong. Which was pretty much what you were doing, but you figured that Sicheng could walk home alone for once. But the fact that Taeyong was also waiting for you didn’t do anything to help your attempt at not insinuating that you were going with him.

“Where are you going?” He questioned, sounding more curious than offended, thankfully. A good question, as ever since you’d gone to boba to study together that one afternoon, you had walked home together.

Taeyong answered, slinging an arm around your shoulders, “ _We’re_ getting boba!”

That was when Sicheng’s mood took a turn for annoyed. His eyes were glued to the other boy’s arm as he gave a monotonous goodbye, pivoting on his heel to exit as quickly as possible.

“Was that really necessary, Taeyong?” You scowled at him, wriggling out from under his shoulder before leading the way out of the classroom.

He jogged to catch up to you, matching your quick pace. “The poor dude clearly has a crush on you.”

“And what does that matter to you?”

“You said that you were just friends, don’t you want him to not be crushing on you?”

“Of course, but you don’t have to be an asshole about it.” Your scowl was still on your features as you shoved the front doors open, not holding it open for Taeyong, half-hoping they would slam in his face. “Besides, you don’t even know for sure that he does. He just thinks of me as his little sister, nothing else.”

“Alright, alright.” Taeyong relented, then called out your name.

“What?” You snapped, whipping around to look at him.

He pointed to the side parking lot, “My car’s over there.”

Letting out a frustrated huff, you followed Taeyong to his car, a blue sedan that you’d seen parked in his driveway every day since his 18th birthday. You’d been in it plenty of times before, making the passenger seat a familiar space to you. He said nothing as he started the engine, whatever was playing on his phone before immediately blaring through the speakers. After turning it down, he reversed out of his space and left the parking lot.

You couldn’t even look out the window, knowing that you’d surely pass by Sicheng walking home. So your eyes trained on your hands as they rested in your lap, fidgeting with your phone case. Taeyong had one hand on the steering wheel, the other messing with the air conditioning to make the car a comfortable temperature.

When you had reached the boba place, Taeyong managed to find a parking spot a little further down the street. The sidewalks were packed as usual, a few people jostling you as you went by. Your companion put an arm around your shoulders again, a familiar gesture. In the past, he would do that almost every time you went out together in a busy place, so that he didn’t lose you. Inside the shop, he immediately took his arm back, giving you a polite nod to get in line before him.

You were finally settled at a table, sipping on your tea that Taeyong had insisted on buying for you. You weren’t sure if it was a bribe or just him being genuinely nice. You hoped for the second one.

“I’m sorry.” Taeyong started, fingertip messing with the condensation already forming on his cup. “For yelling at you this morning and making stuff up and embarrassing you in front of Yukhei… and also the whole commons. I’m also sorry for how I’ve been treating you this school year. I miss you a bunch, Y/N. It’s not the same without my best friend.”

Looking up from where you had been pushing the boba around with your straw, you took a moment to look at Taeyong’s face. Despite the red hair, eyebrow slits, lip piercing, leather jacket, ripped jeans, and how much he’d matured over the years, you could still faintly recognize the little kid you’d grown up with. He looked starkly different even just from a year ago, you remarked. But the genuine remorse in his features softened whatever bad boy exterior he was going for, and you felt a twist in your chest. Your heart was still pulling you towards him, reminding you of how much you’d missed your friend in these months.

“I forgive you, Taeyong.” You finally uttered, and relief flashed across his face briefly, but his brows were still furrowed, waiting for your answer to his unspoken question. “And I think, that we can be best friends again.”

And that was all it took for a huge grin to take over his lips, his entire face brightening up at your acceptance of his friendship. Returning his grin with a small smile of your own, you brought your straw back to your lips, sucking up the beads at the bottom of your cup, accompanied by the sweet drink you’d chosen.

“So what movie do you want to watch tonight?” Taeyong suddenly asked, and you gave him a strange look.

“What?”

“Tonight, my house, you and me. What movie?”

You shook your head, “I can’t, I have plans.”

“What? With who?”

“Sicheng and Kun.”

“But we’re—” He was absolutely bewildered, and you cut him off with a strong yet gentle counter.

“You can’t just _assume_ that we’re hanging out, Taeyong.” You explained, not missing the way his bottom lip jutted out every so slightly into the tiniest pout. “If we’re going to be friends again, you need to understand that I have other friends now too.”

He sighed in defeat, and you reached over the table to affectionately ruffle his hair, feeling satisfied as he leant into your touch, the pout nearly disappearing.

“Maybe you should see if some of your friends can hang out tonight. You and I can do something this weekend, okay?”

“Okay.” Taeyong relented as you withdrew your hand, picking up your drink again.

* * *

“I cannot _believe_ you agreed to go out with him.” Sicheng was despondent as you sat with him and Kun on the latter’s couch, some random sitcom playing as the three of you ate snacks and scrolled on your phones in the same vicinity as each other. Sometimes it was nice to just do absolutely nothing together.

“Will you just leave it be?” You groaned from where you were watching Chenle’s Snapchat story of Jisung pushing Mark into his own pool, using Kun’s lap as a footrest. “You say it as if it was a date and we made out or fucked or something. We got boba and talked and agreed to try to be friends again. Why are you being so pissy about it?”

“Because he’s bad news, Y/N.”

“Kun-Kun.”

“Nope, I am not getting involved in this.” Your other friend shook his head, already having learned that taking sides in this friendship dynamic ended badly for him in some way.

“I just want to ask you a question.”

“Alright, what is it?”

“Do you think people can change?”

“Of course.”

You gave a pointed look to Sicheng—who was on Kun’s other side—at his answer. Both of your phones were forgotten as he retorted, “That doesn’t always mean change for the better, sometimes they can change for the worse.”

“And sometimes they can change back to being good again. Right, Kun?”

Kun gave Sicheng an apologetic look before he gave in and said, “Y/N’s right, Sicheng. You can’t tell her who she can and can’t be friends with. If she thinks that Taeyong can get better and wants to befriend him again, it’s her decision. So just _shut the fuck up_.”

Sicheng’s betrayal was apparent in his face, but he conceded, “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“It’s okay.” The microwave dinged just then, all three of you perking up before making a mad dash to the kitchen.

* * *

That weekend, Taeyong took you to the park for a picnic, something you hadn’t done since that lovely June day where he’d declared his wish to become a bad boy. You were even in the same position, his head resting in your lap and one of your hands absentmindedly played with his hair, the other on the blanket behind you, propping you up. Your friend was pointing out clouds he thought were pretty, and your head craned up to follow his fingers. It was colder than the last time you were here, making his leather jacket actually warranted for once. You had accepted the button-and-patch-covered jean jacket he’d offered you, to his surprise and delight.

The sleeves were just too long on you, occasionally hitting his face as your hand went to mess with his hair. But he didn’t complain, content with just watching clouds and holding pieces of fruit up for you to eat from his fingers, so you didn’t have to stop running your own fingers through his hair. The scarlet strands were just as soft as you remembered his brown hair being, and your eyes dropped from the sky to look at his face, fingers hovering just over his slit eyebrow.

He immediately noticed that you’d looked down at him, giving you an affectionately questioning look, “What’s up?”

“How often do you have to touch it up?” You blurted out, pad of your ring finger brushing over the shaved area, the switching between hair and bare skin being unfamiliar to you.

“Every couple of weeks. If I care enough.”

“And your hair?”

“Once a month. If I care enough.”

“Hm.” You hummed thoughtfully, eyes drifting to his lip ring.

“Here,” Taeyong seemed to know what you were looking at, grabbing the hand still stroking at his eyebrow, gently touching your fingertip to the cold metal. “It’s real this time.”

Your fingers graced over it for a moment before you returned them to his hair, gently scratching at his scalp, “Cool.”

He chuckled lightly at your simple response, pointing to another cloud drifting by.

* * *

After that day, your daily schedule had slowly come to incorporate Taeyong again. If he wanted to go to first period, he would drive you to school, giving you a goodbye at your locker before finding his own friends. 

You welcomed him and Dumber to your table in Finance—thankfully Jeno and Donghyuck had no objections, as Sicheng surely would if you ever suggested he join you at lunch—making sure he did his work. 

He was in history almost everyday now, making the occasional quip during lecture that made you stifle a giggle, but he always knew when to stop and let the both of you focus on the task at hand. 

If neither you nor he had plans with your other friends after school, he would drive you back home and usually stay around for a little bit, much to both your mothers’ delight. 

Weekends usually varied between hanging out with him or your other friends. Your younger friends didn’t mind if Taeyong tagged along to lunch or a movie with you all, but in order to preserve your friendship with Sicheng, you had to hang out with either one or the other. 

Despite Taeyong getting along well with most of your new friends, you still had yet to interact with his outside of your occasional unpleasant encounters during the school day.

It was a random Wednesday that had you walking towards history with Taeyong when his phone suddenly buzzed. As he read the screen, his face lit up, and turned to you with a sheepish smile, “Hey… would you be super mad if I didn’t go to history with you today?”

“No.” You frowned thoughtfully. “Where are you going?”

“The guys and I are going to get slushies.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“ _You’re_ going to… skip?”

“Yeah.” You paused, then added quickly, “We’re just finishing up the worksheet Mrs. Oh assigned yesterday, and I got it done last night at home.”

“Oh, so you’re responsibly skipping.” He snickered fondly, patting your head.

Your eyes narrowed as a small pout took to your lips, “Would you rather I not go with you?”

“Of course not, let’s go!”

The two of you changed course, heading for the front doors of the school. As you speed-walked towards the front of the school grounds, Taeyong briefly explained what was going to happen, “Okay so Ten and I are splitting up the boys between us to drive there. Don’t worry, you’ve got shotgun in my car. Just a heads up, I’ll probably be having Yukhei, don’t let him bother you, he’s just big and dumb.”

The name Ten was unfamiliar to you, so you figured he must be one of the two you didn’t know the names of, either Dumb or Dumber. While you weren’t looking forward to spending time with Yukhei, you wanted to go into this with an open mind. Even if it was already starting off bad, with you having to enter the no-students parking lot only open to staff members. Taeyong had apparently parked in the far back corner, closest to the open gate, most likely for a quick and easy exit. A few boys were already there, gathered around a silver car parked beside Taeyong’s.

They all called out various greetings to your friend, Dumbest taking the first go at talking to you, “Our little princess is here too!”

You forced a smile, barely trying to hide your distaste of his comment, “Hello, Yuta.”

“She called me by my name!”

“You’re very lucky.” Taeyong said sarcastically, going to introduce them, pointing to the tallest one first. “That’s Johnny.”

“Dumb.” You your own nickname for him, eliciting a tiny giggle from the red-haired boy.

“And Ten.”

“Dumber.”

“And Yuta.”

“Dumbest.”

Yuta said indignantly, “I’m not the dumbest! Ten is!”

“Hey!” Ten cried out, thwacking the back of his friends’ head.

“Well, I’m honored to only be Dumb.” Johnny gave you a reassuring smile, hands stuffed in the pockets of his own leather jacket. “Despite the accuracy, why’d you call us that?”

“I never really learned your names before, so I made up my own for you.” You shrugged, not regretting your choices in the slightest.

It was then Yuta let out a whoop, looking over your shoulder at two tall figures approaching your group. Yukhei returned the whoop, even louder and deeper than his counterpart. Yoonoh shook his head at his friends’ antics, but nonetheless had a smile as he went to greet all of them.

“Y/N!” He grinned as he had finally noticed you from where you were kind of hiding on Taeyong’s other side. “Are you coming with us today?”

“Yeah, yeah.” You offered him a more genuine smile than before, clutching your books a little tighter to your chest.

Yukhei looked to Taeyong, “She’s actually skipping?”

“Yes.” You snapped before your friend could even open his mouth, angry that he wasn’t even addressing you. “I am.”

The taller boy tilted his head, taking only a moment to look you over before breaking into a wide grin, “Nice.”

“Everyone’s here. Let’s go.” Taeyong announced, moving to the driver’s side of his car. “Who am I taking?”

“Me!” Yuta practically dove for a door, throwing it open to plop into the backseat.

You wordlessly answered, opening the passenger side for yourself, not missing the fact that Yukhei had walked around to that side, a little miffed that you’d gotten there first.

“Me.” Yukhei sighed, climbing into the backseat with Yuta.

Johnny and Yoonoh were busy fighting over shotgun for Ten’s car, the former eventually relenting and letting his friend have it. Yuta seemed to be ecstatic about being in the same car as you, leaning forward over the console most of the time to try to talk to you. You engaged him, finding that even though he was a little greasy at times, he was a pretty interesting guy to have a conversation with. He suddenly yelled out, “Turn it up!” before going to turn the knob up himself anyway, immediately jamming out to the song that had previously been much quieter.

Suddenly all three boys that were in the car with you exploded into a messy chorus of yelling as they half-sang along to the song. You knew some of it too, letting yourself join in on the chaos, watching Yuta and Yukhei in the rearview mirror as they danced as best they could in their seatbelts, making wild hand gestures and headbanging so hard you were sure they were going to concuss their already scarce brain cells. But nonetheless, they were having fun, and so were you.

As you were stopped at a red light, Ten pulled up next to your car, and suddenly doors were opening, and everybody was scrambling out. Taeyong quickly put his car in park, unbuckling his seatbelt.

“What are you doing?” You yelled as he ran around, fervently opening your door to unbuckle your seatbelt too.

“Come on! The light’s going to turn green!” He didn’t explain, half-yanking you out of his car and throwing open the backseat of Ten’s to shove you in.

Just as the door closed behind him, the light turned green and both cars peeled off down the street again. You look around, gaining your bearings as you realized that there were four people squished into the backseat, Taeyong, you, Yoonoh, and Yuta, with Johnny in the driver’s seat and nobody in the passenger seat.

“You lost, Taeyong!” Yuta cackled, to which the boy on your left groaned. “I’m going to get a large!”

“At least it’s just shitty gas station slushies,” He mumbled, and his phone ringing with a call distracted him. “Hello?”

“ _YOU LOST!_ ” Came the screams of the boys in the other car, and he immediately hung up.

“What just happened?” You asked quietly as he awkwardly tried to tuck his phone back into his jeans pocket.

“That was a game we like to play. If we get stuck at a red light together, everyone has to get out and run to a different seat. Last person in loses.” He explained, extracting his arm from where it was wedged uncomfortably behind his back to gently rest it on your shoulders. “So now I have to buy everyone’s slushie.”

“You trust each other to drive your cars?” You raised an eyebrow, not trusting most of these boys to drive you anywhere, much less jeopardize your own car or something.

Your friend shrugged, “Most of us have licenses.”

“I do!” Johnny reassured you cheerfully.

“But Yukhei doesn’t.” Yuta pointed to the other car as he laughed. Judging by the two boys’ distressed features, Ten was attempting to give Yukhei some kind of instruction on how to drive, but it wasn’t working very well.

“We’re almost there, it’ll be fine.” Taeyong reassured you, squeezing your shoulder.

Finally, you reached the gas station, Johnny precisely parking the car as Yukhei pulled in next to you, two-thirds of the car in the correct space and the other third in the space on his other side. At least there wasn’t anybody already in that spot, and the gas station didn’t seem to be very busy. Taeyong and Yuta opened a door on each side, allowing the cramped four of you to stumble out of the car. You stretched out your back and legs, Ten’s car being even smaller than Taeyong’s somehow, especially when you were stuffed in the backseat with Yoonoh—who was a certified giant—and two other boys that weren’t terribly small.

You followed the boys into the gas station, the loud mess of the group breaking the quiet that was in it. There was a singular cashier, a college student who very much didn’t want to be there, and two patrons, one being an old man purchasing cigarettes who scowled at you as soon as you walked in, and you nearly had a heart attack when you saw who the other person was. Immediately, you ducked behind an aisle of chips, away from where your father’s eyes had just flicked up from the candies he was browsing. Yuta gave you an interested look, following you into the aisle.

You held a finger up to your mouth, peering through the chips as your father had spotted Taeyong and Yoonoh, giving them a somewhat curt greeting, “Taeyong. Yoonoh.”

“Hello Mr. Y/L/N!” They both greeted him politely, nudging for the other boys still beside them to bow to him as well. Yuta turned to you with wide eyes and shit-eating grin.

“Isn’t school still going on?” He questioned, checking his watch. You knew that your dad liked Taeyong’s “changes” about as much as Sicheng, but thankfully wasn’t as vocal about it.

“Yes, sir.” Taeyong thankfully still knew how to address your dad and knew full-well that he wasn’t asking a question, he was making a statement.

There was another pause, in which Yuta decided that would be a good time to knock a bag of chips over, getting almost everyone’s attention. You dropped to your knees, crouching behind shelves that you knew he definitely couldn’t see you through.

“Sorry!” Yuta called out a general apology, allowing himself to be seen as he held up the bag he’d dropped. “Just getting some Doritos.”

Your father sighed, giving a polite nod to your neighbors, “See you boys later.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Y/L/N.” Taeyong and Yoonoh stepped aside to let him pass by.

You didn’t peek out from behind the chips until the door had opened and closed, cautiously looking around.

“He’s gone, Y/N.” Taeyong informed you, stepping into the aisle with you and Yuta, starting back towards the slushie machines again.

“Good,” You sighed in relief before quickly hitting the back of Yuta’s head. “Asshole.”

That didn’t deter Yuta’s grin as he laid eyes on the slushie machines, making a beeline for the biggest cup. You chose a more reasonable size, browsing the flavors.

Ten sidled up to you, hip-bumping you away from the sour green apple, “Was that your dad or something?” 

“Yeah, and I nearly just had a fucking heart attack.” You confirmed, still hearing your heart beating in your ears.

“At least your dad actually leaves the house,” He pointed out, filling up half his cup with the green slush before scooting over towards the white pina colada flavor. “My dad just sits around and drinks all day.”

“Oh,” You frowned, watching as he switched to one more flavor, the pink lemonade.

“Hey, stop that,” Ten pinched your cheek until you giggled, swatting his hand away. “I was just exaggerating. He’s not a drunk, he works from home and is honestly just kind of boring.”

“Ah, got it.” You scanned for your own choice again.

Taeyong approached you next, having noticed you debating between two flavors, “I’ll get purple, you get red and we’ll share?”

You smiled, “Sure.”

Everyone approached the counter at once, making the cashier look even more suicidal than before as he had to ring up all the different sizes as the boys were all clamoring and talking. Taeyong had finally paid for everything, giving a thank you to the employee before everyone stormed out of the store.

Both cars were unlocked and started, air conditioning blasting from both as the doors were all propped open. Yoonoh used the backseat to climb up on the roof of Taeyong’s car, and you watched with interest. He gestured for you to come up too, scooting over to give you room. You were unsure, not wanting to damage your friend’s car.

“Go on, mochi.” Taeyong reassured you with a fond half-smile, and you could feel the nickname go right to your heart. It was the first time you had heard it in months.

Assenting, you handed your cup to Taeyong to hold while you climbed up, then took it back once you were settled onto the warm roof of the car. It was perhaps a little too cold outside for slushies, but nonetheless everyone was joyously sipping on the frozen drink. Once your tongue was appropriately red, you tapped Taeyong’s shoulder from where he was leaning against his car beside your legs.

“Trade?” You held out your cup and accepted his own in return.

“Hey, Y/N?” Yukhei called for you attention, perched atop Ten’s car, dark red slushie in hand. You looked over to him attentively, waiting for him to continue. “Got any embarrassing stories about TY?”

“Plenty,” You replied, then jerked a thumb at Yoonoh. “J—Yoonoh too.”

“What did you almost call him?” Ten quickly caught onto that.

“You guys know that his birth name isn’t Yoonoh, right?”

Yuta answered accusingly, “Yeah, but he’s never told us what it is. He wouldn’t even let TY tell us.”

“What’s so embarrassing about your name?” You turned to your childhood friend, who seemed to already be preparing himself for embarrassment, with a slight frown. “I think it’s cute, Jae.”

The other boys—minus Taeyong—immediately began yelling and clambering as you had accidentally revealed the first syllable. They were all clambering for you to say his full name, but you bit your lip, shaking your head as they all pleaded. Yoonoh took a sip of his slush in distress, kicking at the boys that had actually come over to swarm the three of you on the car.

Eventually, they had calmed down again, and Yukhei brought out his backpack to reveal a surprise. Inside were about ten entire bags of chips, which he held out for people to grab. You knew that bag was empty when you went in the store and rued the fact that you had taken your eyes off of him. But you still grabbed a bag anyway, guiltily glancing at the store for a moment as you stuffed a handful in your mouth. 

* * *

Taeyong checked the time, and you peered over his shoulder at what his lockscreen was. Still that photo of him and the other boys. You felt stupid for having yours as a picture you’d taken together at the park, subconsciously shifting a couple centimeters away from him.

“Time to go.” He announced, offering you a hand to help you hop off the roof of his car. “Who am I taking home?”

“Me.” You and Yoonoh answered in unison, both making a mad dash for the passenger side door. Yoonoh was closer, but you managed to worm your smaller form in front of him, holding tightly to the handle.

“Yoon, sit in the back.” Taeyong sighed, almost sounding like a parent breaking up a fight between his kids.

“Me too!” Yukhei hopped in the back with Yoonoh. “I’m going to _Jae’s_ house.”

“Not if you keep calling me that.” He growled, sliding into the back too.

“Why didn’t you get mad at Y/N when she called you that?”

“Because it’s habit for her, she called me that for like, thirteen years. You’re just doing it to be annoying.”

You heard yelling and rolled down your window to properly hear whatever Yuta was screaming at you as half of him was hanging out of the backseat of Ten’s car. “Bye, princess!”

You couldn’t resist giving Yuta the middle finger, receiving an overly-offended expression from the boy right before Ten left the gas station. Taeyong dropped Yukhei and Yoonoh off first, both still bickering about the fact that the latter wouldn’t reveal his birth name, and the former kept yelling out ‘Jae’ in a sing-song voice.

Taeyong pulled up into his driveway, putting the car in park but not turning it off. He wanted to talk.

You looked to him with interest, slurping up the last of the red drink before saying, “What’s up, Yonggie?”

“Is everything okay, Y/N?” He asked quietly, turning in his seat to face you completely. “You seem kind of bummed about something.”

He wasn’t wrong, the dumb issue of your phone wallpapers was still hovering in your mind. You didn’t know why you were so stuck on this, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Shaking your head, you tried to avoid answering by sucking on the straw again, but the drink was completely gone.

“Mochi,” Taeyong called out for you again. “Come on, I thought we were okay. What’s wrong?”

“It’s something dumb.” You mumbled, bringing out your phone, then holding your empty hand out towards your friend. “Can I see your phone for a second?”

“Sure.” He handed it over, and you turned both on, placing them next to each other on the console, lockscreens on display. 

“I don’t get it, Y/N.”

“Never mind…”

“No, Y/N, what’s bothering you?”

“I have my lockscreen as a picture of the two of us, but you don’t.”

He chuckled, reaching a hand out to tenderly tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear, “Here.”

You looked to where he had picked up his phone again, opening it to reveal his homescreen to you. It was a picture of you two laughing as you were on his back in Mark’s pool. You could remember exactly what you were doing, teaming up against Chenle, who had splashed you two while you were just chilling out together in the shallow end. According to your younger friend, you were being boring, and he had to fix that. Jisung had taken the picture, having become your unofficial photographer since you had started bringing Taeyong to more hangouts with them. He said that he liked to see you smiling so much, so he wanted to take more pictures of you two together like that.

A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you reminisced, and the present Taeyong spoke up, “You want to know why it’s my homescreen?”

“Why?” You entertained him, knowing he would tell you either way.

“Because that’s where the special stuff goes. The stuff I only want me seeing, not just anybody who turns on my phone.”

“Oh.” Finally, the grin cracked across your face at his honest—if somewhat cheesy—reasoning.

Taeyong then turned the car off, “Are we good?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

When you trudged into your house just a few minutes later, you were greeted by your dad, who was eating the M&Ms he had just purchased less than an hour prior.

“Hey, Y/N.” He offered the package out to you, but you politely declined, the sugary slushies still sloshing in your stomach.

“Hi Dad. How was work?” You asked, setting your bookbag down on the kitchen counter to retrieve your binders for the classes you had homework in.

“I saw Taeyong and Jaehyun today.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, at the gas station by your school. But it was during school hours.”

“Okay? Why are you telling me this?”

“I just wanted to tell you how happy I am that you and Sicheng turned out the best out of the four of you.”

“Uh, thanks.” You coughed awkwardly, starting towards your room. “I’ve got homework, see you at dinner!”

* * *

Taeyong hadn’t wanted to go to first period that morning, which you couldn’t blame him for, he had the same boom-boom math class as Jisung, which neither of them really belonged in. So after saying goodbye to Sicheng at the front of the school—he had to talk to one of his teachers about making up a quiz—you went to your locker. Mark and Chenle weren’t there yet, but someone else was. You approached the large boy with an eyebrow raised, not quite sure why Wong Yukhei was leaning against your locker, alone.

“Morning, Yukhei!” You were friendly, despite the anxiety crawling through your veins. No matter how much you’d been hanging out with Taeyong and his friends recently, Yukhei never failed to unsettle you. You just couldn’t be comfortable around him.

He moved away from your locker to allow you to twist it open, still not speaking.

“So what’s up?” You spoke up again, fingers stiff as you entered your combination.

“Stay away from TY.”

You nearly dropped the binder you had just grabbed, whipping around to glower at him, “Excuse me?”

“He’s heads-over-heels for you, Y/N.” His deep voice was practically a whine. “It’s making him lame again.”

“Listen here, Wong Yukhei.” You spat, taking a step closer to him as your blood boiled just below your skin. “You have no fucking right to tell me who I can or can’t hang out with, or Taeyong either, for that matter. If you can’t stand that Taeyong and I are friends again, I really don’t fucking care. Because I don’t fucking care about any of your opinions for that matter. So just shut up and fuck off.”

You hadn’t meant to dig into him so deep, but it had clearly worked, as he took a respectful step back, ducking his head. When it came back up, there was half a smirk there as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, “See you around, Y/N.”

You let out a scoff, still not sure what his exact purpose for that confrontation was. But he left you alone, which was really all you wanted. Practically slamming your locker shut, you turned again to be met by the awe-filled faces of Chenle and Mark.

“I counted four ‘fucks’ in that.” Chenle held up the same number of fingers. “I expected more, actually.”

“Chenle.” Mark scolded the younger boy, opening his own locker up. “You good, Y/N?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little pissed off is all.”

“What’d he say?”

“He told me to stay away from Taeyong.” You snorted, waiting patiently for him to switch out his school things. “Because apparently he’s ‘heads-over-heels for me,’ and I’m ‘making him lame again.’”

Chenle spoke up with a snicker, “I don’t know about the lame part, but he’s got most of that right.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Oh, are you not aware that both of you have giant, obvious crushes on each other?”

Mark was holding back a laugh too as he turned around, “Seriously, you didn’t know?”

Now your own friends were annoying you, “I don’t like him like that, and he doesn’t like me like that! We’re just best friends, okay?”

“And you two stopped being best friends for like, six months. Distance makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Oh so then you won’t mind me leaving right now.” With that, you gripped your books tighter in your grip and left the commons, your friends still giggling together.

Jisung was in his normal spot behind the school, watching you with interest again as you sat beside him. 

“You seem to only want to hang out with me when you’re in emotional distress.” He stated, offering you another granola bar.

“Why do you think I’m in emotional distress?” You ripped the packaging open violently, causing the bar to fall out and immediately become caked with dirt. A frustrated screech came from your throat as you kicked it away.

“That’s why.”

“Fucking mind reader.” You glared at him as he calmly reached into his bag for another granola bar, opening it for you before handing it to you. Accepting it, you took a bite, taking your time in chewing it as you tilted your head back to rest it against the brick. You consciously tried to deepen your breaths, syncing them up with Jisung’s calmer ones. Despite your heartrate going down, your brain was still focused on what Yukhei, Chenle, and Mark had all said this mornings.

“Jisungie?”

“Yes?”

“Do I have a crush on Taeyong?”

He clearly didn’t seem to be expecting that, the most confused expression on his face when you rolled your head over to look at him. Your friend took quite a few moments to think, eyes flitting around everywhere.

“Ah, uhm… I don’t- I don’t think I’m the right person, for you to ask about that? I don’t think anybody is?” He ran a hand through his hair, fingers fidgeting with his empty granola bar wrapper. “Why?”

“Chenle said that Taeyong and I have crushes on each other. But I don’t know.”

“Well, I can at least tell you that Taeyong cares for you. A lot. Like holy shit, that boy is so soft for you he’s like a freaking stuffed animal around you.”

Jisung’s comparison of your “bad boy” friend to a stuffed animal brought a fond smile to your face, one that had you freezing for a moment. Did you… maybe… have a crush on Taeyong?

“But seriously Y/N, I can’t tell you for sure one way or the other about your feelings for him or his feelings for you. That is _way_ out of my mind-reading abilities.”

Letting out a sigh, you opened your phone, eyes glued to your lockscreen. The picture made your chest swell, a different bittersweet pain than before, when you just missed your best friend. Instead, it felt like you were longing for something different from him.

Your screen lit up with a message, which you quickly opened.

[yonggie: you’re at school, right?]

[you: uh, yeah, why?]

[yonggie: can you miss your second and maybe also third and fourth classes?]

[you: for what?]

[yonggie: me, duh]

[yonggie: and also for brunch]

You mulled over his offer. Any other day you’d say yes, but there was just so much churning in your mind that everything else felt numb and tired. Apparently, you’d spent too long thinking it over, because your phone buzzed with another message from him.

[yonggie: please? i want to tell you something really important]

[yonggie: like, super important]

[yonggie: y/n]

[yonggie: mochi ❤💕💞💗💓❣💝💘💖💞❣❤💗💓💞💕💕]

With reluctant fingers but a determined heart, you typed out your short and curt reply.

[you: i can’t. big test in third]

Then turned off your phone.


	4. [four]

After you’d denied Taeyong’s brunch request, there was yet another shift in your relationship. It felt different but familiar. It felt how it did a year or two ago, but not how it was recently. And you even felt yourself almost start avoiding him, planning things with Sicheng or your other friends weeks in advance so that you’d have a reason to say no to Taeyong wanting to hang out. You mostly accepted his offers if he specified that some of his other friends would be there, too afraid of what you would do if you had to be alone with him. 

Were you running from your feelings? Abso-fucking-lutely.

This specific weekend, you’d planned for boba with Sicheng and Kun, the former having to back out because of a family vacation, but you didn’t mind spending the day with only Kun. He was just as much your friend as anybody else in the small group. You’d gotten the drinks to go, wanting to walk around and window shop together.

Your arm was linked with his, not a strange occurrence for you to be doing with any of your friends. Kun had just pointed out a rather ridiculous piece of clothing in a shop window, making the both of you giggle. Taking a sip of your drink, you chewed thoughtfully on the beads as he told you a story from his childhood that the garment had reminded him of. Something to do with his grandmother and his younger brother. You weren’t quite paying attention, eyes having locked onto the bright red back of someone’s head. It could be anybody, Taeyong wasn’t the only person ever who could dye his hair red.

As you approached the man with the tuft of red hair, you managed to focus back in on Kun’s story just in time to hear the funny ending, laughing at the appropriate time. Kun laughed a little harder than you did, eyes shut tight just in time to accidentally bump into the redhaired man, who was most definitely Taeyong.

“Oh, sorry!” Kun said, eyes widening when he saw who it was. “Hey Taeyong! Small city, huh?”

“Hey, Yonggie!” You greeted him cheerfully, precisely removing your arm from Kun’s to hug Taeyong, then keep it back at your own side. “What are you out here doing?”

“Just walking around, actually.” He replied nonchalantly, and you didn’t catch the way he seemed to force his eyes to dim as he looked at you.

“Ah, us too! You want to join us? We’re heading towards the riverwalk.”

Taeyong glanced at Kun, as if for permission or something before shrugging, “Sure.”

So the three of you continued, falling into an easy conversation. The river was beautiful as always, only adding to the peace you were convincing yourself to feel. You were hanging out with two of your good friends, and that’s all that either of them were. Your friends. Platonic. 

You were in the middle of snickering with Taeyong over a quip he made about your Finance teacher—whom everybody hated—when you realized that Kun hadn’t said anything in a while. Bringing your head back up from where it was resting on Taeyong’s shoulder as you both leaned your elbows on the railing, you frowned when you couldn’t find Kun.

“He said he was going to the bathroom like, five minutes ago.” Taeyong informed you, sounding amused at your obliviousness.

You rested your head back on his shoulder, eyes skimming over the peaceful water below you before stopping at the railing where your arms were placed. Your hand was only a couple centimeters from Taeyong’s, the tiniest of jerks would make them touch. And you had the urge to just hold his hand, intertwine your fingers with his and feel whole.

Biting your lip, you were contemplating saying something, finally addressing the elephant in the room. But you heard footsteps nearing, and instead stood up straight, turning to face your friend who was returning, three steaming cups in hand.

“Kun-Kun!” You greeted him probably too enthusiastically, welcoming the distraction.

“I got us all some hot chocolate,” Kun explained, offering you each a drink. “I figured it was chilly enough.”

“Thanks, dude.” Taeyong took one too, and you watched his slender fingers wrap around the cup.

After finishing the hot chocolate and walking around a little more, Taeyong offered to throw them all out, leaving you and Kun sitting at a picnic table near the river.

“I would complain about third-wheeling, but you two aren’t dating, are you?” Kun suddenly teased, and you couldn’t even muster up an angry glare for him.

“No, we’re not.” You mumbled, stuffing your hands in the jean jacket you had kept since Taeyong leant it to you at the park forever ago.

“Isn’t that his jacket?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you like him?”

“Yeah.”

“Does he like you?”

“I think he did… but I ruined it.”

Kun shook his head, scooting a little closer to readjust the collar of your shirt affectionately, “I think… that he’s still heads-over-heels for you, Y/N.”

You sighed, observing Taeyong laugh and hide his face as he had gotten pulled into conversation with some pretty girl by the trash can, feeling your heart sink. “I don’t know.”

* * *

Some random Friday after that found you laying on your bed, half-paying attention to the textbook you were meant to be taking notes from as you hummed along to the music you were playing from your computer.

“Y/N.” Your mother called for you from down the hall, and you looked up to your doorway as you heard her approaching footsteps.

“Yes?” You questioned, her figure appearing there.

“Why aren’t you at Taeyong’s house?”

“Because he didn’t invite me over?”

“His mom says his friends are over, aren’t you two friends again?”

“Yes.” You answered, utterly confused as to why she was grilling you about not hanging out with Taeyong at this specific moment. “But I’m not going to just invite myself over to his house.”

“You used to just get up and go over there all the time.”

“What do you want, Mom?”

“It’s Taeyong’s mom…” She seemed disheartened, sighing as she looked down at her phone screen.

“Is Mrs. Lee requesting I come over?”

“Yes, she’s worried.”

“Alright.” You pushed yourself off your bed, throwing a big, worn zip-up hoodie on over your t-shirt and old pair of gym shorts.

“Thanks, sweetie.” Your mom followed you to the door, and you gave some kind of affirmative grumble as you slipped on a pair of flip-flops to start the short trek.

At the Lees house, you had barely knocked once when the door was thrown open by a very apprehensive-looking Mrs. Lee, “Oh, Y/N! Thank you for coming!”

“Uh, thank you for having me?” You let her usher you inside, looking around for evidence of Taeyong’s ‘bad boy’ gang.

“They’re in the spare room.” She informed you, to which you nodded in understanding.

You showed yourself to the spare room in the back, knowing this house just as well as your own. The door was cracked open, allowing the music playing from within to spill out. Pushing it open, you scanned the room to take a mental roster of who all was there. The faces of Yukhei, Yoonoh, Johnny, Ten, and Yuta were all looking up at you from their various places on the couch, armchairs, and floor.

“What are you doing here?” Yuta questioned.

“Looking for Taeyong.” You answered simply, glancing around the room again.

Yoonoh spoke up, sharing an awkward look with Johnny and Ten, “Ah, now is not a good time for you, to uh, be here, Y/N.”

“What do you mean?”

Yukhei’s booming voice covered the other boy’s, a devilish grin on his face, “What are you talking about? I think Y/N showed up at the perfect time!”

“Yukhei, don’t.” Johnny warned, but nobody made any move to stop him as he hopped up off the couch.

Ten added in exasperation, “Wong Yukhei, can you just not be an asshole for two seconds?”

Yukhei approached you, practically leering down at you, “Here, I’ll take you to him.”

Despite every fiber of your being telling you that this was a bad idea, you let Yukhei wrap one of his long arms around your shoulders and start leading you away from the spare room. He guided you through the hallways, and you knew exactly where they led. Stopping in front of Taeyong’s bedroom, you couldn’t force yourself to take even a single breath as Yukhei’s large hand wrapped around the door handle. He gently turned it, pushing the door open silently.

And suddenly the small noises you heard coming from it before made sense. Taeyong _was_ right there, but he wasn’t alone. It was an unfortunately familiar sight to you. Taeyong on his bed, being straddled by a half-dressed girl as their hips were sloppily grating against each other.

You felt like puking right then and there.

Yukhei still had his arm around your shoulders, and you pushed it off as you tried to squeeze past his large body that was taking up most of the narrow hallway. He couldn’t keep his laughter at bay, watching you bolt away from the horrific scene before you. You could’ve sworn you’d heard Taeyong’s voice yelling something after you, but you were already too far gone. Yoonoh and Johnny briefly tried to stop you, soothing words that you were whole-heartedly convinced were fake being said to you. But your brain couldn’t process anything, shoving off Yoonoh’s arms as he tried to grab you. The only thing on your mind was that you had to leave.

You’d finally flown out the front door, hoping that Mrs. Lee hadn’t seen you. You knew that you couldn’t go home, Taeyong would be gladly welcomed in by your mother. So you went somewhere nearby that you knew would shelter you from him and all his friends. You didn’t even go up to the front door, instead skirting around the side of the Dongs’ house to the back porch. Sicheng seemed alarmed as you came trudging through his backyard, immediately standing up from where he had been reading on a wooden rocking chair.

As you neared him, you knew that he could see the tears running down your face, and immediately went to embrace you. “Holy shit, Y/N. Come on, come in. You’re okay now. Let’s go.”

He opened his back door, walking you through it while still holding you tightly to his side with a single, gentle arm around your shoulders. His mom went to ask something as you shuffled by, but your friend gave her a look, and her mouth immediately closed, instead just watching you with concern. Sicheng finally sat you down at the head of his bed and busied himself with gathering things for you. You sat there quietly sobbing, staring down at your hands as they rested in your lap. And as you sat there in your old, worn clothes, your hair unwashed and unbrushed, a colony of pimples on your forehead, and your skin blotchy and red and tear-soaked, you felt utterly… inadequate.

Sicheng entered the room again, laying a blanket over your lap, putting more pillows behind your back, placing a box of tissues beside you, and thrusting a cold water bottle into your hands. He sat down cross-legged in front of you, reaching forward to unscrew the water bottle for you, but you roughly slapped his hand away.

“I can do it myself.” You mumbled, bringing the bottle to your lips to take a small, refreshing sip. Your friend nodded understandingly, retracting his hands.

But they didn’t stay back for long, he couldn’t help himself from readjusting your blanket, or grabbing a tissue to try to wipe at your tears. You twisted your head away from the tissue stubbornly. He gave up, but was still holding it, as if waiting for you to ask him to wipe your tears. You stuck a hand out to accept the tissue, pushing it against your squinted eyes, willing the tears to just stop. You pressed so hard that fireworks lit up behind your eyes, and you could forgive the uncomfortable pain of pushing your eyes back into your skull as you almost reveled in it. Because you were _feeling something_.

“Do you want to talk?” Sicheng asked quietly, and you only shook your head, fingers still buried in your eyes.

Why the fuck were you even being like this?

Taeyong was just your friend, nothing more. And you had told yourself over and over again that that was what you wanted. That was how this had to be, how it was going to be, forever.

Wong Yukhei suddenly entered your thoughts, and you truly wished for nothing more than to punch him right in his big, dumb fucking face.

Sicheng’s room was at the front of the house, meaning that you could hear someone knock on the front door. After only a second, they knocked again. Then again. Your friend stood up, telling you quietly that he’d be back. You listened as he opened the door and immediately gave a flat, “No.”

Kneeling on his bed, you peered out the blinds to see who it was. Taeyong was standing on the front porch, fidgeting anxiously as he tried to plead with the stone-faced Sicheng. “Sicheng, please, I know she’s here. She wasn’t at her house, I know she’s here.”

“Go home, Taeyong.”

“Dude, I fucked up so bad.”

“I’m sure.” Sicheng snorted, and you felt your bottom lip tremble again as Taeyong ran a hand through his hair, in clear distress. 

“Please, just let me apologize to her, that’s it.”

“No.”

“Alright, I just— Fuck!” Taeyong yelled out, kicking the outside of Sicheng’s house, slapping his hands to his face, rubbing it harshly in frustration. 

He looked up, and by chance, made eye contact with you through the blinds. You were frozen, unable to look away from his deep brown eyes, the whites of his eyes tinged with pink like yours. Had he been crying too?

He dropped his hands from his face, lips parting ever so slightly in awe before he suddenly broke the eye contact, turning back to Sicheng, even more desperate than before. “Please, let me in. Let me just see her, let me tell her how goddamn stupid I was and how sorry I am, and how much I’m absolutely, truly in—”

Sicheng cut him off harshly, and it was the coldest you had ever heard your normally caring friend’s voice become, “ _Leave_ , Taeyong. Now.”

You had already dropped the blinds you had been peeking through, falling back onto the bed. Probably discouraged by your disappearance, Taeyong obeyed the other boy’s stern command. You heard the front door shut again and pulled the blanket tighter around you. Sicheng was back in his bedroom, looking at you with pity that made your skin crawl. You appreciated him, but sometimes his care and his friendship felt suffocating and patronizing.

“I need to go home.” You sniffed, going to take the blanket off, but Sicheng stopped you, sitting across from you again.

“What the hell did he do to you, Y/N?” His voice was still hard, a frightening sound.

“Nothing. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw him making out with some girl.”

“Motherfucker—”

“Dong Sicheng!” You chastised him strongly, making him recoil. “It’s not like we’re dating, or even talking. He’s allowed to make out with whoever he wants, and as his friend I should support him.”

“You’re too good for him.”

You shook your head fervently at that notion, “No, no. He’s good, he really is. He’s a good, genuine, sweet guy, who is just making some bad decisions. Everybody does, it’s okay.”

He didn’t seem to share your same sentiment, “He’s not like how he was when he was four. None of us are.”

“You say that, and yet… you still treat me like a four-year-old girl who can’t handle the cruelties of real life and needs your loving protection at all times. I’m fucking tired of it, Sicheng.”

As he tried to protest and justify himself, you stood up, shaking off his pleading hand that went to grab yours. You removed the blanket from yourself, depositing it on the bed before going to slip your feet back into your raggedy flip-flops. Finally bringing your phone out from your pocket, you were glad that it had been on silent, because you had five missed calls and at least a dozen apologetic texts from Taeyong, accompanied by a mildly concerned one from your own mother.

“I need to get going.” You stated flatly, showing yourself to the door.

Sicheng followed behind you, defeated. You waved to his mom, who was sitting on the couch that was visible from the living room. As you stood in the doorway, about to close the door behind you, your friend spoke up again.

“Y/N, I—” Something else seemed to be on the tip of his tongue, but he switched trains of thought. “I’m sorry. Please be safe, and… do whatever you think you need to do.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you Monday, Sicheng.” You nodded to him, then set off back down the street to your house.

When you came home, your mother was clearly worried about you, but asked nothing other than if you wanted some leftovers. She probably figured that you’d tell her about whatever she thought was going on if, and when you wanted to. You declined the food, walking yourself back to your own bedroom. It felt so nice to be able to just collapse on your own bed. Tears contemplated a return, but you found yourself almost just too tired to cry.

At long last, you went to read the texts Taeyong had sent you. They were all similar questions of where you were, if you were okay; apologies and confessions of his stupidity were sprinkled in, and you bit your lip bitterly at the last one.

[yonggie: can i please come over?]

Your fingers had no hesitation in them as they quickly typed out and sent your reply.

[you: my window is unlocked]

Less than two minutes later, there was a sharp knock on your window. Your fingers dumbly messed with the mechanism of your window before you were able to open it the first inch. Taeyong gladly pushed it up the rest of the way, climbing in as naturally as he ever did. Except this time you didn’t both sit on your bed and immediately exchange friendly greetings or launch into a dynamic conversation. There was no sense of normalcy or safety in the situation at hand. The pair of you were standing in the middle of your room, your hands stuffed in your jacket pockets, and eyes trained on the floor. Taeyong seemed to be contemplating what to say first, cautious and hesitant to move a single muscle out of fear of your reaction.

“I fucked up.” He finally stated, and you didn’t even have to ask him what he was referencing. The elephant in the room.

“What do you mean? We’re not dating or talking or anything. You had every right to go out and do whatever you wanted with whoever you wanted.” You replied hollowly, no feeling behind your words.

“I know, but… I still wasn’t being honest with you, about stuff.” Taeyong paused, apprehensively wringing his hands together. “Because I didn’t want to lose my best friend again.”

“I have a question.” You didn’t even wait for him to nod to show that he was okay with you asking it. “What were you going to say, on Sicheng’s doorstep earlier? Before he cut you off.”

There was no hesitation as he looked you dead in the eye and confessed, “That I’m absolutely, truly in love with you.”

“You have a terrible way of showing it.” Was your immediate retort, sounding much harsher than you mean it to be. Some of this was your fault, too.

“I’m sorry. I thought that you didn’t like me that, and the guys thought other girls would be a good way for me to get over you.”

“Did it work?”

“What? No, it didn’t. I didn’t want it to, either.” He could still see your apprehension, adding on, “Y/N, when you left, I immediately went to try to follow you. And I’m so sorry, that I did that to you. I can’t even try to blame Yukhei for showing you, it’s all on me. I completely fucked this up, didn’t I?”

You bit your lip, pausing to take a deep breath before saying, “…No.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I do really want to be with you, Taeyong.”

“I promise, I’ll be better for you.”

“I don’t expect you to dump all your friends or completely convert back to how you were before.” You scoffed, sitting on your bed and gesturing for him to join you, feeling some of the tension in the room being relieved at your friendly gesture. “Because I can tell that a lot of this really is who you are, and I like it too. I still see that good, giggly, dumb boy I fell for; just with red hair, a couple eyebrow slits, and piercings that look _really good_ on him now.”

“I love you.” Taeyong suddenly blurted out, the grin on his face almost blinding you.

“Mhm,” Finally letting yourself reach out and intertwine your fingers with his, you hummed in approval, fearful of saying it back to him. That would make this real, make any heartbreak coming your way be palpable. “Let’s go on a nice date tomorrow.”

“Sure, yeah. On me.” He offered, squeezing your hand gently.


	5. [five]

Graduation.

Fucking _finally_.

Standing at the joint graduation party you were holding with Taeyong, Yoonoh, and Sicheng, you felt nothing but relief for high school to finally be over. You couldn’t even feel any sort of remorse for leaving your younger friends behind, three of whom you were currently chatting with.

“I’m not going to have my locker buddy anymore.” Mark wiped away a fake tear, and you joined in on his false sorrow.

“I know,” You sniffled mockingly. “I’m going to miss watching each other open our lockers three times a day _so much_.”

“I won’t have anybody to share granola bars with behind the school while they cry about Taeyong.” Jisung pouted, not being as melodramatic as Mark and you, but still joining the banter.

“I never cried!” You groaned, kicking the back of his knee as he grinned mischievously and Donghyuck cackled.

Taeyong then approached the three of you, accompanied by Johnny, who gave the younger boys enthusiastic greetings. Your boyfriend’s arm came to rest on your arm as he eagerly said hello to your friends. You easily leaned into the touch, your own arm taking purchase around his waist as you were amused at how animated Mark and Donghyuck immediately became around the older boy. Taeyong leaned over to murmur in your ear, “Having fun?”

“Of course.” You replied quietly, scanning the crowd of familiar faces again.

Both of your friend groups had become less distinct as the school year came to a close, the mixing evident as you looked around. Yuta and Ten were having some kind of non-alcoholic drinking contest, which Sicheng was observing with a simper on his face. Chenle and Yoonoh were cheering them on while Yukhei, Kun, Jeno, and Jaemin were dancing a little too enthusiastically to the music.

“So I was thinking… that we could recreate that photo of the four of us on the bench. Since we all don’t hate each other anymore.”

“Hmm, good idea. Let’s go grab the other two.” You let go of his waist to take his hand in yours, excusing yourselves from the group. Not like Mark or Jisung would notice your absence, too enthralled by Johnny.

The contest had reached some kind of close, you weren’t quite sure who won or lost, but everybody was cheering. You grabbed Sicheng’s arm as Taeyong tapped Yoonoh’s shoulder. They both turned to look at you two with smiles.

“Hey! Y/N, I haven’t seen you all night!” Yoonoh yelled over the music that was much louder now that you were closer to the speakers.

“Because you’ve been out here, Yoon!” You explained, then changed the topic. “We should recreate that photo of us, on the bench.”

You couldn’t find a bench inside or outside the venue, but the concrete rim of a planter in the courtyard would suit your purposes well enough. You’d originally meant to only grab one parent to take the picture, but they were all together and all insisted on coming out and witnessing it. Mrs. Lee was holding the camera in her hands that were nearly shaking in excitement. Sitting on the planter, Sicheng on your right, and Taeyong on your left, you listened to your mom call out instructions on how you should all pose to match the original picture. You knew the gist of it, wrapping your arms around Taeyong and squishing your cheeks together as Sicheng leaned over to put his face near yours and Yoonoh did the same on Taeyong’s left.

“Big smiles!” Mr. Jung yelled out enthusiastically, and you immediately went to do so, already grinning just form the position you were in.

Mrs. Lee did the countdown, “Okay! 1, 2, 3!”

On three, the flash of the camera went off, but you hardly realized it as Taeyong had turned his head at the last moment, smooching your cheek loudly instead. You immediately burst out laughing as he kept pecking your cheek, screeching out a “Taeyong!” as he still hadn’t relented. Finally, you pushed him off, shaking your head at your boyfriend’s antics, cheeks hurting from how much you were smiling. You met his mother halfway, eager to see how the picture turned out.

“It’s not exact,” She gave her son a pointed look, holding the screen out towards the four of you. “But I think it’s still pretty darn cute.”

It really was. She had caught the exact moment that Taeyong kissed your cheek, forever memorializing your delighted surprise, mouth spread wide in laughter, matching the bright grins of your other two beaming friends. From the over a decade since the first one, Taeyong and Yoonoh’s “bad boy” alterations, your relationship changes with Taeyong, and Sicheng’s usage of braces, it was truly incredible how much the four of you had changed.

“That came out great!” Yoonoh exclaimed, taking the camera from her hands to look at it closer. “We’ve gotten so fucking old!”

“Jung Jaehyun!” Mrs. Jung chastised him, but nobody actually seemed upset, all too caught up in the nostalgia.

The camera was passed to Mr. Dong next, switching hands so everybody could see it. You were following Taeyong and Yoonoh back into the venue when Sicheng tugged on your arm.

“Y/N, do you think we could talk for a second?” He requested, glancing at Taeyong as your boyfriend and Yoonoh had halted when you did.

“Of course!” You accepted, turning to the other two. “We’ll be inside in a bit, guys.”

They nodded, turning away back into the building. Sicheng led you over to the edge of the grounds, where the moon was visible through the leaves and branches of the trees. He couldn’t seem to look at you quite properly, and you just waited patiently for him to say something.

“I really liked you, you know that, Y/N?” He started off, catching you way off-guard. Sicheng continued on, “For years. And I thought—I thought that when Taeyong and you stopped being friends, and especially after all the bad shit he was doing, that I had finally had a chance.”

Your friend chewed on his lip as you scanned his face, trying to think of something to say, “Sicheng… I’m—I’m sorry.”

“Ah, don’t be.” He shook his head, shrugging nonchalantly. “I just have a question, that I need answered. You know, for future reference.”

“Uh, sure.”

“Was part of it me, Y/N? Because I kept trying to protect you and was smothering you?”

You scratched at the back of your neck awkwardly, not having thought about that in a while. “No, no. It’s not that, I promise. I don’t know why I didn’t like you instead, honestly it would have been so much easier, but—”

“I’m not Taeyong.” Sicheng cut you off knowingly, a somewhat amused look on his face.

A pained smile came to your lips, and your lack of an answer confirmed his statement well enough. He nodded, going to turn away, but you grabbed his arm again. “I’m sorry. You’ll always be a part of my heart, Sichengie, you’re still my best friend.”

“No I’m not. I know it’s still him.”

“I—”

“That’s okay, Y/N.” He gave you a reassuring smile, one that twisted at your heartstrings. “I don’t need to be the most important person in your life. I’m just happy to be included in it.”

You were still standing there dumbfounded and pained when he linked his arm through yours, “Come on, Y/N. We still have a party going on.”

* * *

It was one of those summer nights where you were so happy to be doing just absolutely nothing. School had ended a couple weeks ago, leaving you the whole summer to prepare for your first year of college. You were laying on Taeyong’s bed with him, his fingers innocently tracing patterns on your back underneath your shirt as you rested your head on his chest. While he scrolled on his phone, you were half-asleep, letting your mind wander as his movements soothes you. You were absolutely, truly content.

“Taeyong?” You mumbled against his shirt.

“Hm?” His chest rumbled underneath you as his eyes flicked down from his phone screen to your face.

“I love you.”

A grin quickly spread across his face as he turned his phone off, fully focusing on you. Taeyong had told you that plenty of times, but the fear of making this all _real_ was so ingrained in you that you never repeated it back to him. And he never pressured you, knowing that you needed time. 

“I love you too.” He gave your forehead a peck, a fond smile coming to your own lips. “Absolutely, truly.”


End file.
